The Odell Beckham Jr. trade still doesn’t make sense

When New York Giants’ general manager Dave Gettleman said, “we didn’t sign Odell to trade him,” that was supposed to be the end of it, right? Right?! Wrong! Six months after extending Odell Beckham Jr. to a 5-year, $90M mega-deal, the star wide receiver is headed out of the NFC East via trade!

I don’t have to tell you this is great news. Instead, I’ll let Brandon Lee Gowton do it:

“This news is great for the Eagles, who will no longer have to face Beckham twice a year. In nine career games against Philadelphia, OBJ has 61 receptions for 732 yards and six touchdowns. Now here’s who the Giants have left at receiver: Sterling Shepard, Corey Coleman, Brittan Golden, Quadree Henderson, Jawill Davis, Alonzo Russell. Who?”

It took the Cleveland Browns a 2019 first rounder (17th overall), third rounder (95th overall) and safety Jabrill Peppers to get the deal done. Overall, the Giants off-loading this past year has netted them a total of two picks in the first two days of the 2019 NFL Draft and a couple of players. It also gives them the lead with the most dead money against the cap by a lot with a staggering $33,656,400 total. Beckham accounts for $16M of that.

Without Beckham, Manning’s quarterback stats tank hard. He averages a yard less in yards per attempt and his QB rating drops from 91.9 to 78.8 since Beckham joined the team. It was even worse when Beckham missed a significant string of time in 2017.

For the Giants fans that will cry that they haven’t won anything with Beckham, well, bad news.. Their winning percentage drops from .424% with him to .285% without him. Perhaps he wasn’t the problem.

For the Browns, the move to acquire the 2nd all-time leader in receiving yards per game gives them elite piece for an offense that is coming together quite nicely. Beckham will possibly enjoy even more success in joining forces with a quarterback that can.. well.. throw to open receivers.

“Per Next Gen Stats, [Eli Manning] ranks last in success rate (56 percent) and second-from-last in YPA (7.7) when his receiver was open over the last three years. When [Baker Mayfield] saw an open receiver during his rookie season, he averaged 8.8 YPA and earned a 63 percent success rate.” - Graham Barfield, NFL.com

This could go on and on listing the ways this was an act of desperation by the Giants and makes no sense in conjunction with the others moves they’ve made. Instead of that, come listen to our reaction on The Kist & Solak Show #85! Do so on the media player below or by clicking here if the player doesn’t load. New to podcasts? Check out our guide on how to listen to BGN! FLY EAGLES FLY!